home valuation question

Probably. Dispute the appraisal, since it seems unlikely the house increased $40k in the past few months. (Don't use Zillow as a guide, by the way. Their numbers aren't good at reflecting the deflating home value numbers.)

Do a search. Depending on where you are, the assessed values are usually based on market value of a couple of years ago. You usually just have a limited amount of time to file for a tax abatement. You have to contact your tax collector's office to find out what the procedure is.

For instance, a 2010 tax bill could be based on the sale prices of properties in the town as of 12/31/2008. They take 2009 to collect all that data and then send out the bills for 2010. Nobody really complains about this process when property values are going up as the property will seem under assessed, but when property values are going down, that's when everyone thinks they're over assessed.

michal1980 said: if everyone in the area is over assessed then it really doesn't matter.

What people should pay attention to is how big their local goverment budget is.

all the assement does is determine your share of the pie.
This is a very general statement and I disagree. If some smart people fight their assessments the rest will hold the bag for the government budget. I did fight my assessment but from what I know most of my neighbors did not.
Therefor I will pay lower taxes and they won't but I am sure the city budget will stay the same so eventually they just raise the tax percentages and the ones with higher appraisals pay more.
It is always worth to fight it if you think it is too high.
But I do agree, my assessment done in May 2009 was based on 2005 to 2007 comps but they ended up appraising our house almost 20% above purchase price.

GermanExpat said: michal1980 said: if everyone in the area is over assessed then it really doesn't matter.

What people should pay attention to is how big their local goverment budget is.

all the assement does is determine your share of the pie.
This is a very general statement and I disagree. If some smart people fight their assessments the rest will hold the bag for the government budget. I did fight my assessment but from what I know most of my neighbors did not.
Therefor I will pay lower taxes and they won't but I am sure the city budget will stay the same so eventually they just raise the tax percentages and the ones with higher appraisals pay more.
It is always worth to fight it if you think it is too high.
But I do agree, my assessment done in May 2009 was based on 2005 to 2007 comps but they ended up appraising our house almost 20% above purchase price.

Yes, the first comment is just a generalization. But generalizations doesn't pay the tax bill and people want a bill as low as possible. That's why if your bill is too high relative to everyone else, you should fight it otherwise you end up carrying the load. There's really not much you can easily do about the local government budget besides vote people out at election. Depending on what state you're in, you may have some limitation on your taxes. We have Prop 2 1/2 which says the local government's budget can't go up by more than 2.5% a year. That doesn't mean your taxes can't go up higher if your assessment is higher. Usually if the budget is 100 million and the tax base is 10 billion, then the tax rate is $10 per $1000. Now if the tax base falls down to 8 billion, the city still gets to collect 100 million or as high as 102.5 million the next year. So that changes the tax rate from $10 to $12.82. So the assessed amount is less, but the tax rate goes up and you still end up paying more in taxes.

xoneinax said: tester99 said: Get some comps, a local realtor should be able to help. Find out your assesor's policy on disputing your assesed valueThis is exactly what I overhead while at the Assessor's office. But you dont need a realtor, RedFin/Trulia/etc list recent salesThrough the selection criteria available in various MLS systems, real estate agents can easily get better access to valid comps. If you just go in with a list of sold homes, you don't stand as much of a chance succeeding with your appeal as when you go in with a list of valid comps (similar year construction, sq footage, etc.). An agent isn't going to charge for that service. It's also a good way to get to know which agents are decent and which aren't.